Monthly Archives: January 2016

I chuckled when I saw “flock-sourcing” listed as one of the “Jargon Watch” terms in David Schwen’s recent column in Wired (Feb. 2016).

Here we go, I thought. More senseless hipster lingo that puts some clever spin on already worn out slang. The definition given sounded even more ridiculous:

outsourcing medical diagnosis to pigeons. If trained to interpret microscope images or mammograms, groups of pigeons can spot signs of breast cancer as accurately as pathologists. Flocks would initially be enlisted to test new medical imaging software.

This had to be satire. Schwen was obviously taking a jab at crowdsourcing … Read the rest